The Countryside Commission, which merged with the Rural Development Commission to form the Countryside Agency, before being linked with other organisations to become Natural England, was the body which created and originally administered the Millennium Greens.
The plan to create Millennium Greens[]
The idea of Millennium Greens was created by the Commission in 1995, according to Issue 5 of the Millennium Green Newsletter in Spring 1999. They approached the Millennium Commission for grant funding in Feb 1996. The Commission advertised the proposal and organisations throughout England enquired about the grant. The Commission employed a team to meet up with local people and discuss their proposal. They then assisted the local volunteers to create the Trusts for each Green, then to oversee the planning and creation of the Greens. The following files shows the plans and their intentions, including the figure for how much was budgeted to create the Greens- £10 Million.
File:MM Green intro leaflet 1996.pdf
Countryside Commission Regions[]
There were seperate regions, with staff for each and the Trusts applied to the Commission for their grant.
Plans for after the Creation[]
Originally, it was planned that the Countryside Commission would maintain contact with the Greens and that the Commission would visit 10% of the Greens each year, with the aim that all would receive a visit over a ten year period.
Countryside Agency[]
The merger creating the Countryside Agency made no real difference to the Millennium Green project, from the point of view of the Greens it was just a name change.
Natural England[]
With the merging of this body into Natural England, funding was cut to a point that Natural England has no real staff for Millennium Greens and their only usual involvement with the Greens is assisting in winding them up as charities.